Saturday, January 16, 2010

Just how low can an MP sink?

I really do not like tribal politics, which is why I try not to personalise things about my opponents - but there's a limit. It beggars belief how anyone can vote for someone who could have written this stuff - even if its for the Daily Sport. And its from a Lib Dem blog!! Like Lembit I couldn't care less what the Northern Irish politicians, Peter and Iris Robinson do with their private lives - but its accusations of corruption and a cavalier approach to standards that in public life that has landed the Robinson's in trouble - not Mrs Robinson's exotic private life. This is not a laughing matter - especially after what some MPs have been caught doing with their expenses over recent months.

Hmmm... I would have expected a lot more from the incumbent MP for Montgomeryshire, not least because he comes from Northern Ireland. Thankfully he longer speaks for his party on Northern Ireland matters.

Quite the most intentionally misleading and naive article I've ever seen a politician put his name to.

Daran - we all say stupid thing from time to time, but the context here makes this particularly bad. UK politics is held in contempt by the public ebcause of abuse of expenses, and an MP who has been much involved in this issue (and I'm being factual rather than judgemental) has written an aticle for a national publication (I do not use the term newspaper) which treats it all as a bit of a joke - and for money. If only the people of Montgomeryshire knew about it.

JB - We are going to have an odd election in Montgomeryshire. David Rowlands is an old friend of mine, and a highly principled man; Heledd Fychan is a new friend, who has a love of her nation and a bit of spirit that I admire. We would have a good policy based campaign, with a focus on local and national issues - but overshadowing everything we have this sort of Daily Sport smut. The three of us are just going to try to rise above it.

Savonarola - I become used to the puerile smut in these columns, but this is more serious. It did surprise me, because I would have expected every MP who had been involved in the MPs expenses row to want to move on with a degree of contrition - not just brazenly joke about it. It was this approach aboard the Cunard Liner in the Med. that so incensed the hotelier from Torquay who wrote all the national newspapers, and exposed the freebie trip when Parliament was sitting. Its because this approach is so contemptuous of voters that I am indeed surprised.